Glencoe

The mountain resort is located adjacent to the West Highland walking trail. This is a very popular walking trail which starts in northern Glasgow and finishes at Fort William - a 95 mile trail. The resort was full of hikers using the camping pods for night stop overs.
Karen determined that the highest point of the trail was nearby - it comprised of a walk up the Devils Staircase on the old military road. The top of the climb was about 5 miles from the mountain resort, so we set off in late morning ready for a good walk.
As we left the resort, there was a caravan set up with a lot of activity surrounding it. It turns out that this was a check point for the annual trail race. About 300 runners enter the race to see if they can complete the course within 35 hours. This check point was at the 71 mile mark, with the runners leaving the start line at 1am. Upon chatting with the officials, they believed that the leading two runners would be passing through within the hour. Quite impressive, with the equivalent of nearly three marathons completed, they would only have one more marathon to complete before the finish.
Sure enough, after about 45 mins of our walk the leading runner came through. Not one bit of spare on his body, he was as jaunty as a spring lamb. The second placed runner passed us about 20 minutes later, he also looked pretty fresh.
We got to the top of the climb before any other runners came through. We enjoyed our lunch at the high point then continued down the trail for a bit to have a look at Blackwater reservoir.
Returning to base, it took some while for other runners to come our way, after about numbers nine and ten, the level of anguish on their faces seemed to increase. We gave each runner encouragement for their heroic effort to this point. One more elderly gentleman declared that "every bit of him hurts", but still he soldiered on.
The runners would not have time to look at the scenery, it was quite magnificent.
The runners had to get to the check point at the Mountain centre within 20 hours of the start otherwise they would not be allowed to carry on. Some of the path over the hill was quite difficult underfoot, so we presumed it would be quite treacherous in the dark. In any event after a certain time period all runners could only complete the final two sections with support runners.
We felt good about our 30k steps, as K said to the runners," just think how good you will feel at the finish"もっと詳しく